My quest to access automatic license plate reader (LPR) records.

Share this story

OAKLAND, CA—The last time the Oakland Police Department (OPD) saw me was on May 6, 2013 at 6:38:25pm.

My car was at the corner of Mandana Blvd. and Grand Ave., just blocks away from the apartment that my wife and I moved out of about a month earlier. It’s an intersection I drive through fairly frequently even now, and the OPD’s own license plate reader (LPR) data bears that out. One of its LPRs—Unit 1825—captured my car passing through that intersection twice between late April 2013 and early May 2013.

Further Reading

I have no criminal record, have committed no crime, and am not (as far as I know) under investigation by the OPD or any law enforcement agency. Since I first moved to Oakland in 2005, I’ve been pulled over by the OPD exactly once—for accidentally not making a complete stop while making a right-hand turn at a red light—four years ago. Nevertheless, the OPD’s LPR system captured my car 13 times between April 29, 2012 and May 6, 2013 at various points around the city, and it retained that data. My car is neither wanted nor stolen. The OPD has no warrant on me, no probable cause, and no reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, yet it watches where I go. Is that a problem?

LPR deployments—which are rapidly expanding throughout the country to cities and towns big and small—help law enforcement officers scan license plates extremely quickly (typically, 60 plates per second) and run those against a “hot list” of cars that are wanted or stolen. The cameras themselves can be hidden inside infrastructure or mounted onto squad cars. Law enforcement agencies love them. The federal government is even encouraging local law enforcement (through federal grants) to purchase more for several thousand dollars apiece. But LPRs aren't just looking for stolen cars; they capture every plate that they see. In some cases, they retain that plate, location, date, and time information... indefinitely.

Sid Heal is a recently retired commander who evaluated technology during his decades-long tenure at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. He's now a law enforcement consultant and told Ars last year that he's been working with LPRs since 2005.

"It was one of the few technologies that did everything that they said it did as well as they said it did," he said. "It staggered the imagination."

Why does OPD hold records of my car that are more than a year old? Was that data ever accessed by or shared with the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC), a federally funded "fusion center" based in San Francisco? What about other federal agencies? Since asking on July 1, 2013, the OPD has yet to respond to my follow-up questions.

In May 2013, we wrote about a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) against the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD), two of the largest local law enforcement agencies in the country. The plaintiffs asked for “all ALPR data collected or generated between 12:01am on August 12, 2012 and 11:59pm on August 19, 2012, including at a minimum, the license plate number, date, time, and location information for each license plate recorded.”

That case is still pending, but it sparked this idea: why not find out what data exists on my own car? Under the California Public Records Act, I should be able to gain access to my own data—but it turns out that getting information from regional law enforcement agencies is an exercise in both patience and frustration. I’ve spent the last two months trying to track down precisely what LPR data various law enforcement agencies around the San Francisco Bay Area (and a few in Southern California) have captured on my vehicle over the last year. This is uncommon; even here in the Bay Area with its privacy-conscious and tech-savvy users, few people appear to know just how much data the police hold on them. In many cases, I was one of just a few people (and sometimes the only person) to request such data about myself. This is what I found.

Enlarge/ How the Oakland Police Department explains license plate readers to its own officers.

See no evil

On May 8, 2013, I submitted a signed letter to the OPD asking for “all data recorded by your agency’s automated license plate reader (ALPR) system between May 6, 2012 and May 6, 2013 for my vehicle, [REDACTED]. This data should include, at a minimum, the license plate number, date, time, and location information.”

I submitted similar letters to the neighboring Berkeley Police Department (BPD), the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD), the remaining eight Bay Area county sheriff’s departments, and NCRIC itself. I also made similar requests to the LAPD, LASD, and to my hometown force, the Santa Monica Police Department (SMPD).

Of the 14 agencies I queried, OPD—to its credit—came back with the most substantial dataset. After nearly two months of waiting, it provided a list of 13 data points, many clustered right at an apartment near the Berkeley/Oakland border that my wife and I rented for six weeks in Spring 2012.

I included the other Southern California entities because my father and brother still live in Santa Monica, and I travel down there a few times per year. The SMPD, with its 11 LPRs, apparently only read my plate once near a freeway onramp that I’ve taken to get to and from my father’s home. (In order to get it, I had to send the SMPD proof of my own car registration—this was the only agency to ask for such documentation.)

The others? Some apparently never saw me at all.

The San Francisco Police Department, with its 24 LPRs, told me by e-mail that my car “was not recorded on our agency’s ALPR system.”

Closer to home, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office—the county that encompasses Oakland, Berkeley, and a number of other East Bay communities—also said that armed with its seven LPR devices: “we do not have any record of your vehicle.” Our county neighbor to the north, Contra Costa County, apparently didn’t record me either.

Interestingly, some said that they didn’t have any LPR system at all. Santa Clara County (home of Google, Apple, and Yahoo, among other tech giants) told me that its sheriff’s department does not have an LPR system. Neither does Sonoma County, north of the Bay Area.

“This is in response to your request for ALPR data from our agency,” wrote the Napa County Sheriff, home to one of California’s best-known wine regions. “Our agency does not use ALPR readers, therefore we have no data to provide you.”

Solano County, adjacent to Napa County, cryptically told me: “No responsive Sheriff's Office records exist because no information is stored.”

Enlarge/ This is a sample of the Oakland Police Department's LPR record on my car.

Share this story

Cyrus Farivar
Cyrus is a Senior Tech Policy Reporter at Ars Technica, and is also a radio producer and author. His latest book, Habeas Data, about the legal cases over the last 50 years that have had an outsized impact on surveillance and privacy law in America, is out now from Melville House. He is based in Oakland, California. Emailcyrus.farivar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@cfarivar

183 Reader Comments

In the military we learned an important distinction about how to think about information and how to categorize it. Essentially, pieces of information in and of themselves may not be classified. However, fusing several pieces of information together to come up with another piece of data can make an "intelligence product." That product can then be acted upon, classified, etc.I really think we should think of pieces of our metadata (where we were, at what time, who we were with, who we called, how long we talked, etc.) in the same way. If the collation of those different data points results or could possibly result in an actionable law-enforcement product then it should need a warrant to collect and store. Metadata is way more important than content. Its collection and storage isn't nearly as harmless as the government would have you think.

As a military person, I am sure you had times where you were still looking for that magic piece to complete the puzzle and other times your had plenty of items to act upon.The US Government is not stupid and knows that collecting everything they can will someday for some things allows for a nearly complete puzzle. It is up to stop them before its too late. That Us vs. Them mentality is really harmful to Liberty. The government is treating all citizens as potential enemy combatants. There is a lot of money to be made from 313 million potential threats.

so im confused. maybe i didnt see it. Are the readers placed on the cop cars or are they stationary.If they are on the cars, its the exact same thing as the cop running the liscense plate on every car they come across. Is that a problem?I mean it seems like the issue most people are having is two fold. 1)its automatically recording the info with no manpower(as in if a cop sat there running plates people wouldnt car, but since its a computer OH NO).2) the idea that this data is kept for so long and there is no law on the books about how long its allowed to be there.I can see the issue with #2, but i have a hard time seeing the issue with #1.

They are both stationary and on cop cars. You will notice them on cop cars usually with two placed at 45 degree angles facing toward the front of the cop car. The cop car will be positioned to obtain the most license plates possible. Some units obtain images while the cop car is moving.The argument that cops or any citizen can capture the same data if they wrote the license plate down or called the tag in is cop out (pun intended).In the US its legal to remain anonymous and its legal to follow someone around. Free country and all. A huge difference occurs when the government gets into the surveillance without probable cause business. The government is supposed to be the arbitrator of citizen disputes and defend the US from foreign attacks. When all citizens are considered enemy combatants and tracked accordingly, the government has lost focus. When the government collects information on everyone and then allows citizens to use that information to destroy other citizens in disputes, we have a problem.It my opinion that privacy from the government should be enforced in the Constitution (4th Amendment) but upon probable cause.

but its not a cop out. For these stationary readers, if a cop sat there for 8 hours a day and ran every single plate he could would you have a problem with that? Likewise if a cop was driving around and running every plate he saw would there be an issue?Ive heard of cops running plates in parking lots, is that an issue?What about red light cameras? are they an issue? what about security cameras at businesses? a re they an issue?Ive gotten a ticket in the mail because i slowed down at a red light, and didnt fully stop. It included a URL i could visit to see the pictures of my car 'running' the stop light, and from there i could pay the fine. I thought it sucked and was neat at the same time. My 3 year old son at the time looked at the page and said 'Daddy thats your car'. I thought it was funny, but it sucked that i ahd to pay 125 dollars for the fine.

You didn't have to pay that ticket. The Constitution allows for you to cross examine your accusers. You chose not to enforce your rights and you lost them.I have address the examples you provide in some of my other posts.Let me make this very clear- I am completely against red light cameras, police cameras of any kind, license readers, facial recognition cameras, etc. for police or government use. The one exception is for our government to use them outside the USA for espionage missions.

I know I could have fought the ticket. But it was a 6 hour round trip, plus gas, missing a day of work, plus possibly still losing the case. So the 125 was easier than all that other stuff. I don't see any issue with red light cameras, or license plate readers. I'm against the rest of them though.

Your registration fee is a tax payment, and the requirement to pay it is morally no different than filing your 1040 or 540. Incidentally, if you fail to pay your registration, the state will garnish your wages to get it back.As to the timeliness of paying: the CHP doesn't bother pullign over violators until it's been several weeks. If you go 6-9 months with expired tags, you're almost guaranteed to get pulled over. Paid a week late? They ignore that.

I'm not (currently) disputing that these fees have to be paid, or the promptness with which you do so. Look at your own phrase "the CHP doesn't bother..." they don't bother because it's not cost effective, and presumably the officers have some human compassion. But just like red-light cameras, these newer monitoring technologies do not. Trust me, it's a matter of time, and not much of it, before venturing out of your driveway without the proper sticker results in an instant debit from your checking account.

Ah. Convenience. It would be nice to not have to stand in line at the DMV every time my registration comes due.

Every get the feeling that the government justifies their job when it comes to things like the DMV? Examples long lines at DMV to guarantee government employees to "help" them all. Why can't we pay for registration via the internet, mail or drop box easily? Some places do some don't.Police departments across the country scream that do not have the manpower to effectively manage crime. Yet, they have numerous cars that sit on the road and run radar (to collect revenue) and run license plates (to do DHS's dirty work).The sooner PEOPLE stop believing government lies and just give them the bare tools necessary for the job, the better and more FREEDOM we will enjoy.

Your registration fee is a tax payment, and the requirement to pay it is morally no different than filing your 1040 or 540. Incidentally, if you fail to pay your registration, the state will garnish your wages to get it back.

As to the timeliness of paying: the CHP doesn't bother pullign over violators until it's been several weeks. If you go 6-9 months with expired tags, you're almost guaranteed to get pulled over. Paid a week late? They ignore that.

I'm not (currently) disputing that these fees have to be paid, or the promptness with which you do so. Look at your own phrase "the CHP doesn't bother..." they don't bother because it's not cost effective, and presumably the officers have some human compassion. But just like red-light cameras, these newer monitoring technologies do not. Trust me, it's a matter of time, and not much of it, before venturing out of your driveway without the proper sticker results in an instant debit from your checking account.

Ah. Convenience. It would be nice to not have to stand in line at the DMV every time my registration comes due.

So, order your registration paper and sticker on-line? I always have mine within the week I place the order. Does California not offer this option?

I know I could have fought the ticket. But it was a 6 hour round trip, plus gas, missing a day of work, plus possibly still losing the case. So the 125 was easier than all that other stuff. I don't see any issue with red light cameras, or license plate readers. I'm against the rest of them though.

I'm glad to hear you are against them generally. I understand the cost factor vs. fight the ticket plan. I just wish more people fought them and got government agencies to go back to the basics.

So, order your registration paper and sticker on-line? I always have mine within the week I place the order. Does California not offer this option?

I am so sorry you were unable to parse my feeble attempt at humor.

And yes, California does do on-line registration, and you can also use a third party for a lot of tasks now. You basically never have to go to the DMV for registration-related issues unless you've really screwed something up.

Before cell phone cameras (or even camcorders), there was a reasonable expectation of privacy in public. Just because the expectation of privacy on the Internet has become zero doesn't mean the expectation of privacy in real life should be the same.

The article documents how few actual crimes investigations have actually been aided by the tag-reading systems, so why are police departments nationwide diverting millions of dollars into building and expanding them?

In Atlanta a state trooper told me that the 4 tag readers on his car cost $44,000 to install, including the real time data link. Maybe he was estimating, but there are dozens of police cars with 2 to 4 readers in the metro area, not to mention fixed sites. I don't have an estimate for what they pay for a 24x7 open data channel, but it is not free. And of course the real money is in the back end storage and analysis system, complete with humans to maintain the equipment and run the queries. I be surprised if the all-up cost for installing this end-to-end integrated system in metro Atlanta didn't cost at least a few million dollars.

Are more crimes prevented or solved with these dollars than would be with alternative allocations of the same amount? Say, more police with better pay? It is hard for me to imagine a police chief in any jurisdiction deciding to cut his budget for staff and spend it instead on tag readers. Yet it is happening nationwide. What is driving it?

PS - I assume all this data is collected by a federal agency, perhaps the NSA. Their charter excludes domestic data, unless there is an international angle. But they interpret the limits to apply only to queries, not to collection. So they can freely accumulate all this data, so long as legitimate queries acquire appropriate approvals. In other words, the record retention policies of local PDs are not the whole story.

My local police department and those of several neighboring counties were all recent recipients of some $18,000 ALPRs, provided by Department of Homeland Security grants. If DHS would only give them the $18k if they used it to buy an ALPR, it's not a matter of cost-effectiveness to them, but whether to accept or turn down free toys. While my FOIA request concerning the deal has been reflexively stonewalled so far, I bet there's some data sharing condition accompanying the gift. Even if there isn't, I doubt that would stop the NSA from getting their hands on it.

You didn't have to pay that ticket. The Constitution allows for you to cross examine your accusers. You chose not to enforce your rights and you lost them.I have address the examples you provide in some of my other posts.Let me make this very clear- I am completely against red light cameras, police cameras of any kind, license readers, facial recognition cameras, etc. for police or government use. The one exception is for our government to use them outside the USA for espionage missions.

Except that the accuser is not the camera. The accuser is the police department, who simply uses photographs from the camera as evidence.

That's no different from using video from a surveillance camera to convict a burglar or car thief.

In Europe, where automatic plate reading is ubiquitous, we are already planning automatic GPS tracking of vehicles. The minister for transport in my country is definitely lusting for it - taxation/tolling purposes. They've already decided. Currently, the only obstacle is price. But when the price is right, you're never outta sight. Yeah, bit of dystopic rhyme thar.

I hope you and your fellow countrymen fight stuff like that.I am utterly amazed at how Europe has forgotten the terror of Gestapo informants, surveillance and building dossiers on nearly every person. This is just an electronic version of the same BS.

Not "just", it is potentially much, much more than that. The actual problem is that digital means have totally shifted the balances here. Back then even the Stasi in East Germany had only the means of listening in to 40 telephone connections at a time. The sheer effort of (even remotely) ubiquitous surveillance meant certain limits you could push against only with tremendous efforts.

The Stasi had lots and lots of informants.

We aren't yet to the point where we're afraid to speak our minds because someone might be listening and turn us in, but we're on the road to that destination; only it won't be our neighbors turning us in, it will be our cellphones or our walls.

See, it's not the use of this technology to do good that bothers me. The case of stolen cars makes this a great tool. But I simply don't see anyway that they could possibly implement this system without collecting information on everyone else. There truly is no ability, in my mind, to weed out the data you're looking for and discard the rest.

Sure there is. If the owner of said vehicle has no outstanding warrants, and the car doesn't show up in the database of stolen vehicles, the data simply isn't kept. Just like what happens when an officer manually runs your plate. If there's no hits for anything illegal, the officer just moves on.

Nope you are wrong. I used to work with these systems. Your location information is retained in case you commit a crime in the future. For example if a car bomb goes off, the FIRST thing the pigs want to know is what time it was parked and what route it took through the city to get there.

AAMOF most will take a photograph for evidence too. Some just the numberplate, but most (thanks to stolen numberplates) want a colour image of the car (make, model, color) and a picture of the drivers face. THAT's really personal information -- you should ask for your photo too!

Try shopping on-line for ANPR readers and look up the capability of the systems on offer if you don't believe me.

If what? The government goes bananas and starts targeting people for what? Driving in a certain part of town? Yeah if the government goes bananas, them knowing where you car's been is the last of your worries. This whole story is a scare piece on what ifs?

Fact remains, number plate tracking is an incredible useful tool for law enforcement. It helps track unlicensed vehicles, stolen vehicles, speeding vehicles etc and that's just the basic premise of this technology.

Can you imagine the wealth of information it can yield for criminal activities, tracking murders, terrorists, kidnappers. But no lets throw this incredible advantage for the law enforcement away, because people are uncomfortable with the conspiracy of the government giving the slightest care about their boring lives.

Cyrus its not just the law enforcement databases but the tollways and private/shopping centre/council car parks who also store data (and send it os to get processed). Even churches and some companies use lpr to monitor their car parks.

To me the worry isn't law enforcement but private companies that use lpr as they do what they like with the data.

But then again you guys in the US(and else where though its illegal in a few countries) get tracked inside shopping centers by your cell phones (thats why some shopping centres have microcells as it gives more accurate tracking data)

This one time, in Nevada, I "accidentally" slowed down for a corner, and got a ticket for doing 107 in a uhm, slower zone.

I got a ticket once for going 60 with a 65 MPH speed limit and thus impeding traffic. A Sunday morning about 6 AM, traveling along a section of an interstate loop around a city, saw no one in front of me and no one in my rear view mirror, no one else but me at the time on that section of the interstate loop until the policeman shows up right behind me in my lane. Four lanes, I was in the inside left lane which is 'traditionally' for faster traffic (even says so in the drivers handbook and law in that state it turned out). I get pulled over and the nice policemen tells me I was going below the speed limit in the 'fast' lane and impeding traffic. I replied to him I was doing 60 and was not exceeding the speed limit and I was the only person around so there was no one to "impede", he said "I was around" then wrote me a ticket. I did beat it, but it was pretty funny looking back on it now.

"for accidentally not making a complete stop while making a right-hand turn at a red light"

How do you "accidentally not" make "a complete stop"?

I did a 'peoples' pull thru. I actually thought i had fully stopped. But the pictures/video showed i did not.

"Stop" in normal traffic flow situations means the driver stops the car fully (meaning ceasing all motion of the car) and then proceeds only if the way ahead is clear. You didn't realize you were still moving? ahhh.... so inattentive driving as well, you villain you

I was in the middle of changing my plates to my fire Department plates. I received the state letter stating that in " 3 to 4 days i should receive the plates" and gave me a pink/purple slip that you must show the officer in case you are scanned/pulled over during those 3 to 4 days.

I happen to stop by burger King. After i ordered, i was in line to get my food, there were 3 vehicles in front of me. To my right side, i see a patrol car that pulls over. He stops behind me, then moves forwards and waits for me to get my food and get out of drive through. All three vehicles left and he waited for me.

As soon as i left, he followed behind me and turned on his lights and through the speaker, asked me to pull over. I did. I have friends who are law enforcement officers and i knew not to give them a hard time specially when i had an idea of why they pulled me over for. I turned off my car. place both hands on the steering wheel and waited. After 3 minutes or so, they both come out with 'almost weapons drawn', they had their hands on their weapons and came over very cautiously as if i was a criminal. I remained calm. nothing to it. Is dangerous here so it is understandable.

officer asked for my drivers license and registration. I asked, Can you please tell me why i was pulled over before i hand you this information. He explained that their scanner alerted them of a plate "Not" in the system and that is why he pulled me over. He confirmed what i had in mind. I told him i was a Firefighter at the neighboring city and handed in my information. At this time, the entire mood changed as the mutual respect of our jobs synced in and everything was relaxed. He saw my badge,took license, and registration of the current plate on my vehicle, checked for any warrants, which is normal procedure, returned to me, had a chant about what took place and the problem with stolen vehicles and that they catch them often at drive throughs.

After reading this article i have mixed emotions because i have also had 2 vehicles stolen and one of them was recovered because of the various checks and automated plates scanners throughout the city and cities around mine. I think that as long as no identifiable data of the person is retained, they can keep that data in the system for a set time. I would say 5 years is more than enough to ensure that if there is ever a criminal charge against you, they can you use that data as partial proof that you were no where near the event or, to proof that you were there and continue on with the investigation. The thing is, how can they proof it was you driving it ?

"for accidentally not making a complete stop while making a right-hand turn at a red light"

How do you "accidentally not" make "a complete stop"?

I did a 'peoples' pull thru. I actually thought i had fully stopped. But the pictures/video showed i did not.

"Stop" in normal traffic flow situations means the driver stops the car fully (meaning ceasing all motion of the car) and then proceeds only if the way ahead is clear. You didn't realize you were still moving? ahhh.... so inattentive driving as well, you villain you

Brasil government wants to implement a system here that is worse. Every car by 2014-2015 should have attached to it a sticker with a chip containing all information about the vehicle(color,doors,engine,UID and the such) and license plate information. Automatic readers of this info will spread like today CCTVs.The "good excuse" is to curb car thieves... but a car thief would just exchange or do something with the chip, replace it or whatever.Truly makes me sad as in the past a scandal occurred when a law enforcer used the "integrated query" system to abuse other people. When the media hit the issue everybody discovered that access to the system is stupid easy (my girlfriend had access in a point of time, i've asked her to show me my data).Can you imagine that together with this kinda of eletronic geo location?CCCP, here i go!

I would tear that retarded sticker off after I bought the car. Just like I make dealers take off their stupid dealership advertisement decal or license plate trim.

Thing is my friend, if it is passed as a law you don't get that option.

The intention is not even "make things easy" as for example, no need to carry paper documentation for the car.

Is plain and simple surveillance and income generation for the government

"I have no criminal record, have committed no crime, and am not (as far as I know) under investigation by the OPD or any law enforcement agency"I hate to burst your bubble but making a complete stop is a crime. In California its considered an infraction. I think we understand that you mean its a minor offense, but its a crime nonetheless. On that note, people break the law every day since there are so many laws on the books. That's a problem, since all the laws make nearly everyone a criminal every day.

Yes, CA traffic infractions are minor criminal offenses punishable by a fine with no jail. Then they have misdemeanors and then felonies. Some states have only misdemeanors and felonies. In those instances, speeding is a misdemeanor and can be punishable by up to 1 year in county jail.Some other states make traffic offenses purely civil.

You didn't have to pay that ticket. The Constitution allows for you to cross examine your accusers. You chose not to enforce your rights and you lost them.I have address the examples you provide in some of my other posts.Let me make this very clear- I am completely against red light cameras, police cameras of any kind, license readers, facial recognition cameras, etc. for police or government use. The one exception is for our government to use them outside the USA for espionage missions.

Except that the accuser is not the camera. The accuser is the police department, who simply uses photographs from the camera as evidence. That's no different from using video from a surveillance camera to convict a burglar or car thief.Red light cameras are, in fact, Constitutional: http://fox2now.com/2013/06/11/court-of- ... itutional/ and http://brandon.patch.com/groups/police- ... urt-rulingThere may be problems with specific implementations, but overall, it appears that using surveillance cameras to detect traffic violations is not unconstitutional.

I will not go into detail on how the justice system actually works, but you have the right to cross examine the police officer evaluating the photos or someone else designated by the police department to verify that the photos are authentic, etc. Basic rules of evidence. Some of the people that fight camera tickets in court get the case dismissed since the cost to defend them is not worth it and there are constitutional issues that can be argued in court.Surveillance cameras do no convict people in the USA for burglary. The images or video can be used as evidence in a burglary prosecution but some person has to prosecute you.

This one time, in Nevada, I "accidentally" slowed down for a corner, and got a ticket for doing 107 in a uhm, slower zone.

I got a ticket once for going 60 with a 65 MPH speed limit and thus impeding traffic. A Sunday morning about 6 AM, traveling along a section of an interstate loop around a city, saw no one in front of me and no one in my rear view mirror, no one else but me at the time on that section of the interstate loop until the policeman shows up right behind me in my lane. Four lanes, I was in the inside left lane which is 'traditionally' for faster traffic (even says so in the drivers handbook and law in that state it turned out). I get pulled over and the nice policemen tells me I was going below the speed limit in the 'fast' lane and impeding traffic. I replied to him I was doing 60 and was not exceeding the speed limit and I was the only person around so there was no one to "impede", he said "I was around" then wrote me a ticket. I did beat it, but it was pretty funny looking back on it now.

Chances are it was that white sign (mandatory) that said slower traffic keep right. The cop came up on you and you didn't move to the right to let him pass in the left lane. My brother writes those tickets all the time. Especially to truckers.Thanks for sharing you story.

Brasil government wants to implement a system here that is worse. Every car by 2014-2015 should have attached to it a sticker with a chip containing all information about the vehicle(color,doors,engine,UID and the such) and license plate information. Automatic readers of this info will spread like today CCTVs.The "good excuse" is to curb car thieves... but a car thief would just exchange or do something with the chip, replace it or whatever.Truly makes me sad as in the past a scandal occurred when a law enforcer used the "integrated query" system to abuse other people. When the media hit the issue everybody discovered that access to the system is stupid easy (my girlfriend had access in a point of time, i've asked her to show me my data).Can you imagine that together with this kinda of eletronic geo location?CCCP, here i go!

I would tear that retarded sticker off after I bought the car. Just like I make dealers take off their stupid dealership advertisement decal or license plate trim.

Thing is my friend, if it is passed as a law you don't get that option.The intention is not even "make things easy" as for example, no need to carry paper documentation for the car.Is plain and simple surveillance and income generation for the government

I know you do not know me but I am not really a rule follower just because there's a law. I try not to be a sheep like that. I would take the sticker off. If they are scanned when a cop car is nearby and could somehow isolate my car, then I would deactivate the sticker using an electromagnet and then claim ignorance if the fascistas were not able to scan my sticker.The same thing might have happened to all the stupid reader strips on the back of my IDs. I laugh when a checkout person slides my ID to get the birth date to buy alcohol. The stupid dummies can't do the math to figure out how old I am.

This one time, in Nevada, I "accidentally" slowed down for a corner, and got a ticket for doing 107 in a uhm, slower zone.

I got a ticket once for going 60 with a 65 MPH speed limit and thus impeding traffic. A Sunday morning about 6 AM, traveling along a section of an interstate loop around a city, saw no one in front of me and no one in my rear view mirror, no one else but me at the time on that section of the interstate loop until the policeman shows up right behind me in my lane. Four lanes, I was in the inside left lane which is 'traditionally' for faster traffic (even says so in the drivers handbook and law in that state it turned out). I get pulled over and the nice policemen tells me I was going below the speed limit in the 'fast' lane and impeding traffic. I replied to him I was doing 60 and was not exceeding the speed limit and I was the only person around so there was no one to "impede", he said "I was around" then wrote me a ticket. I did beat it, but it was pretty funny looking back on it now.

Chances are it was that white sign (mandatory) that said slower traffic keep right. The cop came up on you and you didn't move to the right to let him pass in the left lane. My brother writes those tickets all the time. Especially to truckers.Thanks for sharing you story.

yep, its mandatory that "slower" drivers stay right, but I beat it anyway.

This one time, in Nevada, I "accidentally" slowed down for a corner, and got a ticket for doing 107 in a uhm, slower zone.

I got a ticket once for going 60 with a 65 MPH speed limit and thus impeding traffic. A Sunday morning about 6 AM, traveling along a section of an interstate loop around a city, saw no one in front of me and no one in my rear view mirror, no one else but me at the time on that section of the interstate loop until the policeman shows up right behind me in my lane. Four lanes, I was in the inside left lane which is 'traditionally' for faster traffic (even says so in the drivers handbook and law in that state it turned out). I get pulled over and the nice policemen tells me I was going below the speed limit in the 'fast' lane and impeding traffic. I replied to him I was doing 60 and was not exceeding the speed limit and I was the only person around so there was no one to "impede", he said "I was around" then wrote me a ticket. I did beat it, but it was pretty funny looking back on it now.

Chances are it was that white sign (mandatory) that said slower traffic keep right. The cop came up on you and you didn't move to the right to let him pass in the left lane. My brother writes those tickets all the time. Especially to truckers.Thanks for sharing you story.

yep, its mandatory that "slower" drivers stay right, but I beat it anyway.

I always root for the underdog. Glad to hear you kept your money in that one.

If what? The government goes bananas and starts targeting people for what? Driving in a certain part of town? Yeah if the government goes bananas, them knowing where you car's been is the last of your worries. This whole story is a scare piece on what ifs?

Fact remains, number plate tracking is an incredible useful tool for law enforcement. It helps track unlicensed vehicles, stolen vehicles, speeding vehicles etc and that's just the basic premise of this technology.

Can you imagine the wealth of information it can yield for criminal activities, tracking murders, terrorists, kidnappers. But no lets throw this incredible advantage for the law enforcement away, because people are uncomfortable with the conspiracy of the government giving the slightest care about their boring lives.

Ok, *IF* (there's that word you like) it's SO useful for stopping these kinds of crimes (and the one that seems to crop up a lot is car theft) then there clearly must be a problem.

In the UK ANPR is ubixuitous. I mean McDonnalds has ANPR cameras tied to the DVLA (driver and vehicle licensing agency - they handle both driving licenses and car registrations) to enforce parking restrictions, let alone all the cop cars that have it, the roadside cameras, the roadside tax ('tag' to Americans) cameras, the ANPR speeding cameras (like SPECS, which are average speed cameras set every mile on a motorway). And I remember seeing my first SPECS in 98 on the M62 near Warrington. Hell, London's had the 'ring of steel' since the early 80s, which was an early version of it.And it's helped by UK plates being bigger than us ones, easy to read at twice the distance, and the plates stay with the car, not swapped like US ones.

Car crime is RAMPANT.

US has 797 cars per 1000 pop, while the UK has 519. That works out to 252million cars in the US, and 33 million cars in the UK (roughly)So, since the US has 7.6x as many cars as the UK, and the UK has ANPR, whats the difference in car crime?about 3.6x - OR, you're TWICE AS LIKELY to get a car stolen in a country with widespread ANPR, than one without. Seems the criminals don't think ANPR does much good.But surely it's helped return vehicles to owners, right?According to the office of National Statistics, NO.vehicle recovery rate was about 60% in the early 90s. Now it's just above 40%.

ANPR does not significantly help in recovering, or even preventing, the stolen vehicles.

Of course, you could just watch one of the many fly-on-the-wall cop shows (Road Wars, Traffic Cops, Police Interceptors, etc) that focus on traffic divisions. When they mention ANPR, it's usually a car has tripped their in-car one for no tax, or MOT (that's an annual inspection of roadworthyness), OR a roadside one has been tripped by a car with a 'drugs marker' put on by a random force, so they'll go and pull someone over (the UK has no requirement of probable cause for a stop).

ANPR DOES NOT WORK

Hard to put it any other way, or more bluntly than that. In fact, like CCTV (again, everywhere in the UK), it becomes the default go-to for any cop, because it's easy to go through it, than actually investigate. Who wants to be out in the cold, when you can be in a comfy chair, watching a screen?

If what? The government goes bananas and starts targeting people for what? Driving in a certain part of town? Yeah if the government goes bananas, them knowing where you car's been is the last of your worries. This whole story is a scare piece on what ifs?

Fact remains, number plate tracking is an incredible useful tool for law enforcement. It helps track unlicensed vehicles, stolen vehicles, speeding vehicles etc and that's just the basic premise of this technology.

Can you imagine the wealth of information it can yield for criminal activities, tracking murders, terrorists, kidnappers. But no lets throw this incredible advantage for the law enforcement away, because people are uncomfortable with the conspiracy of the government giving the slightest care about their boring lives.

How long do you need to retain the information to achieve those goals? Unlicensed vehicles, stolen vehicles, speeding vehicles, those are all things you could do with a hot list and no data retention on non-hits.

Of course on the other side of things, just imagine how much easier law enforcement would be if they didn't need to waste their time getting warrants for tapping your phone and searching your house.

This one time, in Nevada, I "accidentally" slowed down for a corner, and got a ticket for doing 107 in a uhm, slower zone.

I got a ticket once for going 60 with a 65 MPH speed limit and thus impeding traffic. A Sunday morning about 6 AM, traveling along a section of an interstate loop around a city, saw no one in front of me and no one in my rear view mirror, no one else but me at the time on that section of the interstate loop until the policeman shows up right behind me in my lane. Four lanes, I was in the inside left lane which is 'traditionally' for faster traffic (even says so in the drivers handbook and law in that state it turned out). I get pulled over and the nice policemen tells me I was going below the speed limit in the 'fast' lane and impeding traffic. I replied to him I was doing 60 and was not exceeding the speed limit and I was the only person around so there was no one to "impede", he said "I was around" then wrote me a ticket. I did beat it, but it was pretty funny looking back on it now.

Chances are it was that white sign (mandatory) that said slower traffic keep right. The cop came up on you and you didn't move to the right to let him pass in the left lane. My brother writes those tickets all the time. Especially to truckers.Thanks for sharing you story.

yep, its mandatory that "slower" drivers stay right, but I beat it anyway.

I always root for the underdog. Glad to hear you kept your money in that one.

Well, there is a reason why I said it that way to the officer. I made it clear that I was not exceeding the speed limit to which he indirectly agreed because it gave my speed as 60 on the ticket he wrote, and I wanted to make sure it was known that there was no one else around. I already knew from the posted speed limits that the minimum speed was 55 and the max was 65, and that impeding traffic only applies when there is traffic to be impeded at the time it was impeded and not because some officer decides he is going get behind me for the purpose of stopping me for impeding traffic by making himself the impeded traffic.

So I went to court, bought the officer in and had him testify. I asked him the question "officer, was exceeding the speed limit your cause for stopping me ? Officer answers no. I then ask "What was your cause for stopping me?" Officer said I was impeding traffic. I asked if there was any other traffic except for us, he said no. I asked him if at the time of the stop if he was en-route to a police emergency response, he says no. I asked him what traffic I was impeding, then he said it, said he was the traffic. The judge knew where this was going, he knew the next thing I was going to assert was that the officer acted in such a manner as to cause the violation to be created, and that's exactly where I was going. The judge said he had heard enough and stopped it then, dismissed the ticket and no court costs.

US has 797 cars per 1000 pop, while the UK has 519. That works out to 252million cars in the US, and 33 million cars in the UK (roughly)So, since the US has 7.6x as many cars as the UK, and the UK has ANPR, whats the difference in car crime?about 3.6x - OR, you're TWICE AS LIKELY to get a car stolen in a country with widespread ANPR, than one without. Seems the criminals don't think ANPR does much good.But surely it's helped return vehicles to owners, right?According to the office of National Statistics, NO.vehicle recovery rate was about 60% in the early 90s. Now it's just above 40%.

ANPR does not significantly help in recovering, or even preventing, the stolen vehicles.

Sounds more like the criminals are no longer holding onto the cars and are junking them after ripping them off.

If someone were stealing a car back before ANPR they might have held onto it for a while and used it for other stuff, so it was easier to retrieve. But now it sounds like the car thief will use it once, scrap it and just steal a new one for the next time.

I see comments on this and almost every article on this topic to the tune of "Law abiding citizens should not be tracked." I'd ask, who defines "law-abiding?" Am I still a law-abiding citizen if I drive over the speed limit? What if I got convicted of misdemeanor drug possession a couple of years ago? 15 years ago? What if I participated in Occupy protests and got ticketed or arrested? It's likely that the majority of US citizens are not 100% law-abiding in the strictest sense of the term.

It's more appropriate to discuss the limits on police surveillance in regards to whether there is an open investigation on an individual, and if the surveillance in question is directly related to such an investigation.

US has 797 cars per 1000 pop, while the UK has 519. That works out to 252million cars in the US, and 33 million cars in the UK (roughly)So, since the US has 7.6x as many cars as the UK, and the UK has ANPR, whats the difference in car crime?about 3.6x - OR, you're TWICE AS LIKELY to get a car stolen in a country with widespread ANPR, than one without. Seems the criminals don't think ANPR does much good.But surely it's helped return vehicles to owners, right?According to the office of National Statistics, NO.vehicle recovery rate was about 60% in the early 90s. Now it's just above 40%.

ANPR does not significantly help in recovering, or even preventing, the stolen vehicles.

Sounds more like the criminals are no longer holding onto the cars and are junking them after ripping them off.

If someone were stealing a car back before ANPR they might have held onto it for a while and used it for other stuff, so it was easier to retrieve. But now it sounds like the car thief will use it once, scrap it and just steal a new one for the next time.

Turns out that if you had a cell phone on you, they didn't need the LPR anyway, however, between the LPR & the NSA's collection of cell phone metadata, the government can effectively tell you your own life story. Just wait until they (NSA) get the new Utah Data Center up. If this is the first step in an openly corporate run government, like in SyFy's Continuum, they are well on their way to having everything they need to directly market to individuals. The government will have that $5 Coca Cola ready for you before you even know you want it.

I don't see them stopping this anytime soon, but at a minimum if they're going to retain data they should at least notify any person when that data has been accessed, by who, and why. I mean that would at lest be a step in showing such information is not being abused.. If it were up to me it would be destroyed within 48 hours because that's plenty of back time if your car is stolen. Not gonna lie if my car was stolen I'd wait at least 6 months to report it. /s

I'm also pretty sure I've read somewhere that a plate comprised of O,0, and D are almost impossible for them to correctly verify. I did that to mine a few years ago and ran a speed trap cam a few times just to see, but I only ran it at about 10 - 15 mph over so I'm not sure if that was enough. I would have went faster but I don't like speeding, saw too many messed up accidents while truck driving.

If what? The government goes bananas and starts targeting people for what? Driving in a certain part of town? Yeah if the government goes bananas, them knowing where you car's been is the last of your worries. This whole story is a scare piece on what ifs?

Fact remains, number plate tracking is an incredible useful tool for law enforcement. It helps track unlicensed vehicles, stolen vehicles, speeding vehicles etc and that's just the basic premise of this technology.

Can you imagine the wealth of information it can yield for criminal activities, tracking murders, terrorists, kidnappers. But no lets throw this incredible advantage for the law enforcement away, because people are uncomfortable with the conspiracy of the government giving the slightest care about their boring lives.

Ok, *IF* (there's that word you like) it's SO useful for stopping these kinds of crimes (and the one that seems to crop up a lot is car theft) then there clearly must be a problem.

In the UK ANPR is ubixuitous. I mean McDonnalds has ANPR cameras tied to the DVLA (driver and vehicle licensing agency - they handle both driving licenses and car registrations) to enforce parking restrictions, let alone all the cop cars that have it, the roadside cameras, the roadside tax ('tag' to Americans) cameras, the ANPR speeding cameras (like SPECS, which are average speed cameras set every mile on a motorway). And I remember seeing my first SPECS in 98 on the M62 near Warrington. Hell, London's had the 'ring of steel' since the early 80s, which was an early version of it.And it's helped by UK plates being bigger than us ones, easy to read at twice the distance, and the plates stay with the car, not swapped like US ones.

Car crime is RAMPANT.

US has 797 cars per 1000 pop, while the UK has 519. That works out to 252million cars in the US, and 33 million cars in the UK (roughly)So, since the US has 7.6x as many cars as the UK, and the UK has ANPR, whats the difference in car crime?about 3.6x - OR, you're TWICE AS LIKELY to get a car stolen in a country with widespread ANPR, than one without. Seems the criminals don't think ANPR does much good.But surely it's helped return vehicles to owners, right?According to the office of National Statistics, NO.vehicle recovery rate was about 60% in the early 90s. Now it's just above 40%.

ANPR does not significantly help in recovering, or even preventing, the stolen vehicles.

Of course, you could just watch one of the many fly-on-the-wall cop shows (Road Wars, Traffic Cops, Police Interceptors, etc) that focus on traffic divisions. When they mention ANPR, it's usually a car has tripped their in-car one for no tax, or MOT (that's an annual inspection of roadworthyness), OR a roadside one has been tripped by a car with a 'drugs marker' put on by a random force, so they'll go and pull someone over (the UK has no requirement of probable cause for a stop).

ANPR DOES NOT WORK

Hard to put it any other way, or more bluntly than that. In fact, like CCTV (again, everywhere in the UK), it becomes the default go-to for any cop, because it's easy to go through it, than actually investigate. Who wants to be out in the cold, when you can be in a comfy chair, watching a screen?

Like a 5 second google search just disputed most of what you've stated here ...

The fact your first point is so blatantly wrong makes me weary to bother debunking the rest of your post.

Besides if you could read you would realize this technology helps SOLVE crime. Not stop it. These cameras can't predict the future, nor stop a person from stealing a car. What it does is make possessing a stolen car very hard, it makes skimping out on road tax almost impossible and it allows us to track the wear abouts of criminals and their activities should there be a need.

The point still stands, no one can point to a real definite potential abuse of this technology ... the police know where your car has been ... what is that going to yield them?

so your pissed that the a government organization that issued your license is monitoring it. so in retrospect, the irs should not be monitoring social security based tax returns, just let all of them go through.